City Slacker

The Grauniad good on 'deadwood floaters',

"The new breed of urban professional who understands that the rules of business have changed and that to survive and prosper, you don't have to do your job well, you just need to look like you're doing it well. Your success depends upon how good you are at pulling off this performance and demands that you take every opportunity you can to be seen that you are doing the job."

70% of the UK workers think that some of their colleagues aren't pulling their weight. They are dead right. As anyone with any commercial experience will testify, the deadwood floats.

Modern businesses appear to have been set up with the city slacker in mind, providing an environment in which they can thrive. The move from corporate hierarchical structures to more flexible project teams, and outsourcing services to third parties, has brought with it ambiguity.

Audit any medium-sized organisation today, and you will quickly find a surprising number of people who command a great deal of authority, but have no genuine accountability for anything."